The fire spread faster and more violently than Duncan had imagined.

He simply lit a small fire on the edge of the huge "pillar" and was prepared to wait for it to spread slowly, but he didn't expect that the small fire would instantly grow into a raging flame that illuminated the deep sea - under the pressure of billions of tons of sea water, the strangeness of the raging fire was even more extraordinary.

Extraordinary things are the best fuel for spiritual flames, and the tentacles of the ancient god are naturally "extraordinary", but even so, the flames still burn too fiercely and too quickly.

It was as if some force was acting as a catalyst, enhancing the power of the spiritual fire.

Is it due to the special environment of the deep sea itself? Or is it that the ancient god's tentacles are actively "cooperating"?

Duncan frowned slightly, feeling the huge amount of information that the flame was conveying to him - the information was fragmented, mixed with a lot of meaningless distorted noise and light and shadow fragments, which seemed to be something that escaped uncontrollably during the collapse of the "tentacles".

For ordinary humans, even a whisper from those "things" might be enough to drive them crazy, but Duncan only felt that they were trivial and chaotic - he tried hard to distinguish useful information from the chaotic noise, and just before all the noise subsided, he finally "heard" some understandable "sounds".

In the sea water, he suddenly opened his eyes wide, and with a little surprise, he stared at the ancient god's tentacles that were rapidly collapsing and disintegrating in the spiritual fire.

"LH-01? Pilot One?!"

In the void, there seemed to be a roar coming from the deep sea. The erroneous replica of the ancient god finally completely collapsed. All the noise disappeared, and there was no sound to answer Duncan's question at this moment. In the sudden silence that seemed to be filled with endless emptiness, only a hazy thought quietly floated through his mind like a phantom in the fog.

"Thank you, Fire Usurper."

Duncan blinked, his mind filled with complicated thoughts and countless amazing guesses and associations. After an unknown amount of time, just as he began to think about whether to continue exploring this place and whether to continue diving deeper, a flickering light suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision.

He turned his head suddenly and saw that Ai, who was flying around him, suddenly flickered violently, like a projection with poor contact. The flames all over the pigeon's body became bright and dim. It began to flap its wings rapidly and made a sharp and intermittent cry: "Your... signal quality is poor, please check... your hardware connection... remote server... wait..."

Duncan's eyes narrowed instantly, and he waved his hand to teleport Ai back. The next second after Ai returned to the Lost Homeland, he noticed that the "temporary body" he was using was rapidly collapsing.

In the blink of an eye, cracks of varying sizes covered the entire "rough" body, and the dark green flames jumping in the cracks were rapidly dissipating.

In the surrounding sea water, the "human figures" floating around began to show the same signs of collapse. Countless human-shaped shells quickly turned into black debris and sank towards the dark "Frost Floating Island" in the deep sea.

The erroneous replica of the ancient god was burned in flames, and the rough human bodies surrounding the deep-sea floating island collapsed. Except for the floating island itself, which might be the "original blueprint", which did not change, everything in the deep sea was quickly disintegrating and dissipating, returning to... "the normal state at the beginning of the design."

Duncan quickly figured out the cause and effect relationship between these changes in his mind, and the next second, he felt his consciousness being forcibly "bounced" from this body that could no longer be maintained.

Before his perception was interrupted, he had only one thought in his mind -

It's a pity that this body adapted to the deep sea environment, I thought it would last a long time, but it turned out to be disposable again...

The low roar of the ballast tank draining water echoed in the submersible, and accompanied by a slight vibration, the whole machine began to accelerate its ascent.

Duncan in front of the console sighed regretfully, remembering the "temporary body" he had just lost, and at the same time confirmed the status of the machine.

The deep-sea turbulence caused by the collapse and disintegration of the huge "pillar" hit the submersible that was slowly rising, but fortunately no damage was caused.

Agatha's horrified voice came from the side: "Just now...what was that?!"

She raised her hand and pointed out of the porthole, pointing at the dark deep sea that was rapidly returning to dimness - however, in the boundless darkness, there were still some residual green glows that burst out from time to time, and large-scale dark green streams seemed to be burning rapidly along some huge wreckage, and it seemed as if a series of explosions were erupting in the darkness.

Outside the submersible, there was chaotic water flow, and the noise from the running machines and the strange bangs coming from the hull from time to time were terrifying.

There was no doubt that something big was happening down there.

"...I found the source of the Frost Crisis. In the center of the deep-sea floating island that is suspected to be the 'Blueprint of Creation', there is an Ancient God tentacle of astonishing size. It is a false copy of the Lord of the Deep - His existence has affected the entire sea area." Duncan turned his head slightly and glanced at Agatha who was obviously waiting for an explanation. "For the past fifty years, the soul of the Frost Queen has been comforting that false copy for too long."

Agatha slowly opened her mouth.

She didn't expect that Captain Duncan could use his "avatar" to take a look and bring back such sensational information!

She was stunned for a long time before she finally woke up and asked subconsciously: "Then...what happened next? What happened next?"

"Burned." Duncan said simply.

Agatha didn't react for a moment: "...burned?"

"Burning," Duncan repeated, and pointed out the porthole. "Can't you see? I lit the fire."

"No, it's not that I didn't understand you. I understand... No, I don't understand. I really don't understand," Agatha was a little incoherent. She had never been so helpless when facing hundreds of cultists in that strange and evil sacrificial field. But in front of Captain Duncan, who seemed to never play by the rules, her rationality always seemed insufficient. "You just... burned it? An ancient god... even if it was just a wrong copy of an ancient god... you burned it?"

Of course Duncan knew that Agatha would definitely react like this, but he really didn't know how to explain the numerous details. He could only think about it for a long time and shrugged helplessly: "To be honest, I was also surprised. "She" is more flammable than I thought."

Agatha: “…”

After a moment of silence, the gatekeeper finally regained consciousness: "Then...what about the soul of the Frost Queen? Did you 'burn' it as well?"

"She is free, but I don't know where she will go - maybe we will meet again," Duncan said every word truthfully. "I talked to her about a lot of things, including her life experiences, the secrets in the deep sea, and some... truths about our world. Most of them are very subversive."

"Very subversive?" Agatha seemed to have not recovered from the shock of "burning" just now. Her thinking was obviously a little slow at this time. She only spoke subconsciously after hearing Duncan's words, "What kind of subversive?"

"You need to burn incense and pray before writing your will. After listening, you need to be isolated for observation and do a mental test. It's subversive." Duncan glanced at her sideways. "I'll tell you after we return to safe land and make sure you are ready."

Even though she was a gatekeeper who had gone through numerous tests and had an extremely strong mental will, Agatha still subconsciously felt her nerves tense up after hearing Duncan's words.

This "captain" who could even return from the subspace actually used such a solemn and serious tone... What secrets did he know in that cold and endless darkness?

At the same time, on the Lost Homeland, Duncan had returned from the "bachelor apartment" that was enclosed by thick fog and returned to his captain's room.

At the edge of the chart table, the dark goat head creaked and turned its neck, and its obsidian-inlaid eyes fixed their gaze on the captain.

"Name?" it asked in a serious tone.

"Duncan Abnomal," Duncan waved his hand, sat down at the table, and looked up at the goat head again, "Have I been away for too long?"

"You've gone too far away," the goat-head seemed to be relieved, and his tone immediately recovered, "I feel that a trace of your will has gone to a very far place, so far that even the Lost Hometown is difficult to capture. Please don't be angry, I am also worried about your safety. After all, such a large ship still relies on the leadership of a wise captain..."

"It's OK. I know you are loyal, reliable, diligent and considerate. Don't worry. It's just a long but short journey. It won't have any impact. What is Alice doing?"

"Miss Alice?" The goat-head paused, then spoke, "She was resting in her cabin just now... Ah, she came over to the captain's room, and seemed to be in a hurry."

As soon as Goat Head finished speaking, a burst of hurried footsteps came from the deck outside the door, and Alice's familiar breath appeared outside the door.

Just as the knock on the door was about to sound, Duncan spoke first: "Come in."

The next second, two knocks on the door were heard, and then the puppet belatedly said "Oh" outside, opened the door and walked into the room.

"Captain! Captain, Captain!" As soon as she entered the house, Alice ran to Duncan in a hurry, and before the latter could speak, she said in a crackling voice, "Something went wrong! I just had a dream! I just had a dream!"

Duncan had a lot to say to Alice, but he didn't expect her to be more anxious than him, which made him frown: "Did you have a dream? What did you dream about?"

"I can't remember the details!" Alice said confidently, "I just felt that I was... a little powerful in the dream? Just like the feeling you mentioned before... as if I had grown a brain?"